The Final Countdown

I'm taking a break from working on the house and decided to add an update.  I can't believe that I have gone through every...single...room of this house, including the garage, the attic, and the back yard.  I still have a few odds and ends to take care of, but I believe that I can officially take a breath.  There's still a lot on my plate and I'll be pretty busy until the 10th.  On the 10th, we move into TLF (temporary living facility for all you non-military).  In this case, I'm praying for a nice cushy hotel with a treadmill, a pool, and room service.  :)

The realtor came out this week and seems to think that our house will sell in a heartbeat.  Well that's all that we're giving them, because if this sucker doesn't sell in 60 days, we're renting it.  I really should have listed it months ago, but I just couldn't get everything done in time.  Oh well, whatever will be, will be.

We're having our garage sale this weekend.  Whatever doesn't sell, will be donated.  Tuesday, some of our things will be going into long-term storage.  The moving company will show up, I'll point out what they are taking, and THEY will pack it and load it up.  Thank God.  Next, on Wednesday and Thursday the packers will be here packing up everything else except the little bit that will be flying over.  They will pick all the packed things up on Friday.  It goes on a boat and begins it's travels across the sea.  It will take about 2-3 months to get there.   After that, either Friday or Saturday morning, we'll be driving up to Dallas to spend the weekend with my sister and brother-in-law.  We have to drop off our vehicle at the shipping company in Dallas on Monday, so we thought we'd make a trip of it.  Besides they just moved and we want to check out the new "pad" before we leave.  Not to mention that the girls are begging to see "Aunt JiJi, Uncle E and Rizzi".  We'll be back Tuesday the 8th and then the packers/movers will be back to pick up our "unaccompanied baggage"on the 10th.  Which is some basic house-hold goods that we will need right away until the rest of our stuff arrives.  This includes things like air mattresses, lawn chairs, bedding, towels, a few pots, pans, dishes, extra clothes, toys, etc.  These things are flown over and I hear that it takes around 3-4 weeks.

Finally, I will get to relax...well until we fly out on the 1st.  During our flights, I doubt there will be any relaxing.  LOL.  Once we arrive, we'll stay in TLF a few weeks while we look for a house.  Then we get to do everything in reverse:  get our stuff delivered and unpack.

I've decided to keep this blog fairly positive except to things relating to our travels, so I wont go into detail about how much I am going to miss everybody, but it has been on my mind.  I've fallen in LOVE with Amelia, and of course, I already love the boys, who will be staying behind.  I wont forget to mention all my other wonderful family and friends, but I'm not going to list people specifically.  We hope everyone comes to visit, I mean, who can pass up traveling to Europe!  :)  Come over and come often.  WE LOVE YOU!!!

Orders, Orders, and MORE Orders!

Just received the news that our orders are IN!  Our "official" orders and our travel orders/itinerary.  Per these orders, we fly out November 1.  That is only 6 weeks and 2 days away!!  Oh my goodness, we still need to deliver our vehicle to be shipped over and get our house packed up, shipped/stored, and find a renter.  Hopefully Mike is in the process of getting all of that scheduled right now.  I'll know more once he gets home from work.  Now that we finally have those infamous orders in-hand, we'll be able to take care of the rest of it.  The sooner the better so we won't be without our things in Germany for very long.  Now on to the not-as-great news.  Our travel itinerary has us in FOUR different airports on this trip.  YUCK!  According to the travel office, it's necessary for us to fly out of San Antonio into Chicago, with a 1.5 hour layover, then on to London and then Luxembourg.  Sounds like a lot of trouble to me, when a friend of mine flew to Germany recently with ONE, I repeat ONE, layover in Baltimore.  Oh well, I really can't complain.  Even if there are 15 layovers, this trip is taking us on an exciting adventure.  I guess now I will be able to say that I have been to England even earlier than planned.  We'll see if we can get those tickets changed, but if not I'm embracing the whole thing.

Passports

One step closer to departure.  We finally got the girls passports while we were in Florida.  Now that the holiday is over, we are able to go in tomorrow to get our military passports as well.  Once we get those passports applied for, Mike says he will FINALLY get his "official" orders.  Luckily we don't have to wait until we actually have those in hand.  We found out before we left for Florida that, because it's the fiscal end-of-year, we will not be able to get our itinerary or ship our POV(vehicle) until after October 1 (new fiscal year).  That said, we are hoping that we WILL be able to schedule our packing/shipping of our household goods once we get those illusive orders, and get our vehicle shipped as close to October 1 as possible.

SEE...we have been getting some things accomplished in between our traveling to see family, and having family come to see us!  :)  A few things not mentioned earlier:  safely delivered our family dog Bailey, to Grandma Barbara and Aunt Tina in Florida; got a new travel vehicle (2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4x4) and have gotten a bit more sorting done at home.  In addition, I have been doing some mental sorting, decided what things we are taking and storing.  WE STILL HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!!!  I NEED to have a garage sale or donate a ton of stuff and I need to deep clean the house, fill some holes, and do some touch-up painting.  If anyone has any extra house elves, I would appreciate it if they would kindly send them over.  The final count down has begun and we now have approximately, less than 2 months to get all of our ducks in a row. Wish me luck!!!